


A Promise Lost in Time

by sinnerman



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 10:46:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18444977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinnerman/pseuds/sinnerman
Summary: I have no idea why I did this, instead of any of the other billions of things I could be doing with my time.  It's just fluff.





	A Promise Lost in Time

_ If I could change one thing?  One thing you say? _

 

“Arthas?  What are you doing here?” I laughed and threw my books down on the desk.  “Aren’t you supposed to be at devotions or something?” Arthas didn’t answer.  He just stood on the balcony, gazing out at the city below. Some small part of me noticed his hands.  They were gripping the bannister tightly, as if he was nervous. Or scared, but that is a ridiculous word to use for Arthas Menethil.  “Arthas?” I moved forward, to touch his shoulder, wondering if he was so caught in his own thoughts that he hadn’t heard my greeting.

He moved away suddenly, sharply, preventing any contact.  “Don’t touch me.” His voice was quiet, unusually so. Normally, when he snuck into my room he was quiet, because otherwise we would both get in trouble, so he kept his battlefield voice in check.  But this - he was being quiet - so quiet I could barely hear him. It was as if he didn’t want me to hear.

“Arthas?”

He shook his head.  “It’s nothing, Kael.  I just - never mind. I’ll see you for dinner?”

I nodded numbly, confused beyond words.  He did look scared. What did he think I would do - I could do?  “Is everything-”

He smiled for the first time, his professional smile.  The smile of a Paladin devoted to protecting people from the ugliness of the world.  “It’s fine. I shouldn’t have come - so early.” The last two words were clearly tacked on, an afterthought.  A sop, to reassure and distract. “I’ll see you later.” Without giving me another chance to talk, to try and wring the truth from him, Arthas jumped down to the flagstones below, leaving me to ponder his strange visit.

We didn’t meet for dinner that evening.  Jaina claimed precedence, and he followed her without a word to me.  His hands were curled up tightly, and he never once reached out to her.  What happened the night before Arthas showed up in my room?

 

_ If I could change one thing?  I would find out - no - I would change the answer to that question. _

 

“Quick!  Get in here!”  I pulled Arthas into my room before the hall monitors saw him.  “You idiot, what are you doing wandering the halls at this hour?”

“I have to return this medallion to Jaina, she took it from the archives for me and it -” Arthas stopped and stared.  The medallion was actually in his hands, or it was before he dropped it in shock. He had meant to hand the medallion to her and slip away under the cover of night, without ever entering her room.  It was just his bad luck - or something else - that our school was enforcing curfew today.

The medallion fell to the floor with a loud metallic clang, and I swiftly bent down to pick it up.  I wasn’t naked. The robe was hastily tied, though, and my hair was unbound for once. “Don’t worry about this,” I smiled.  What could he see, with those bright Human eyes? What was he looking at with such confusion? “What?”

“I just - I didn’t - think - you look - I should go.”  Arthas stammered out the words, and tried to stop staring at me.

“No,” I gently touched his shoulder to stop him.  “They’re watching the courtyards, too. It’s fine.  You’re welcome to say,” I smiled a bit more, and met his eyes.  “And if there’s something else, well, you’re welcome to that, too.”

“You’re sure?” His voice shook slightly, and I had never heard him so unsure and so hungry.

I didn’t trust my own voice.  I nodded, and he smiled in relief to see me shy as well.  We really were two of a kind. He moved first, to draw me closer.

“I’m glad,” he whispered.  His breath was warm in my ear, then on my lips.

A kiss.  Another. Breath coming faster, as his hands first lost their gloves, then found their way under the robe.  His hands were warm on my skin, his calluses rough but tantalizing. He kissed my hair.

Something rose in me, a sudden guilt - something.  “I didn’t think -”

“I never thought-”

We stopped as realized we had both started saying the same thing at the same time - even if our meanings were different.  Were they?

He smiled at me, the warmest smile I had ever seen on his lips.  “Kael.”

I kissed him.  I wanted him to kiss me.  To take me. I would never let him go, and nothing would ever take Arthas Menethil from me, not even me.

 

_Just one thing._

 

“The army is at the gates!”  The militia ran through the streets, warning civilians to take cover.

“Withdraw,” I said sharply.  “This is a matter for the mages.”

Ashamed but eager to avoid the horror of fighting that which could not be fought, the militia retreated, returning weapons to the depot and going home to hide while I led my contingent of mages to the gates.  I could hear the chains of armored horses rustling restlessly.

“What an odd reception,” said their leader.  His voice made me shiver. So cold, and yet… so unchanged.

“Open the gates,” I said loudly, and wondered if the sound affected him as well.

The guardsman on the right gasped, but the guardsman at the left was in my service, and the gates swung open.

Arthas - no longer a Paladin - looked at me.  His hair was white, his skin deathly pale, but his eyes - his bright blue eyes still looked at me like a cat looks at fresh cream.  “Kael.”

I bowed.  “My lord.”

“What?”  Someone from one of the other troops screamed in anger.  “You traitor!”

The mages behind me laughed quietly at her sudden distress.

“Someone shut that bitch up,” Arthas snarled.  “So, Kael, you stand with me?”

“As always, and as I ever will, Arthas.”  I gestured at my cohort. “And I’m not alone.”

“But you will be later, I hope?” Arthas smiled.  “I want to test something.”

  
_Everything._   
  
  


“It was you!” Jaina screamed at me.

I didn’t answer.

“You - you filth!  Of all the things you could have changed!  You could have saved Azeroth! You could have saved him from this!” She gestured wildly at Arthas, who looked slightly bemused.  “But instead, you twisted time just so that you could fuck a corpse!”

“Correction,” I smiled, “the corpse fucks me.”

“What the hell is she going on about?” Arthas asked me, as if she wasn’t even there.

“She’s just upset.  In her mind, I stole you.”

“Stole me?  From what?”

Jaina and I both looked at Arthas.  I think we had forgotten how dense the man could be.  “I stole you from her. She somehow knows of a timeline where-”

“Wait,” Arthas interrupted, waving away my words with a heavily mailed fist.  “From her? As in - no.” He shook his head, trying to hold back laughter. “That’s madness.  Put your wrath somewhere else, woman. I would never have slept with you, let alone stayed with you for years.”

Jaina turned white with anger.  “That’s not true!”

“Yes, it is,” Arthas looked at her, possibly for the first time since we had entered the cavern.  “Jaina, I’m sorry, but I never felt that way towards you. Ever. And certainly not now.”

I looked at Arthas, suddenly curious.  “What if she forced you?”

“What?”  He looked at me, but I looked at her.  She flushed. Red. Angry. Guilty.

“What if,” I said slowly, “she tricked you into her room, and you woke up in bed with her?  With her on top of you?”

“That’s not - that’s not really-” All the years, all the power, even all the ghosts in his soul could not stop Arthas from stammering when he was nervous.  Dead he might be, but he was still Human. So very Human.

“Shut up!” snarled Jaina.  “You don’t know anything. We were betrothed, and he loved me, until you came along and changed time!”

Arthas shook his head, both in denial and in an attempt to clear his head.

I spoke before he could.  “No, Jaina. I changed nothing.  All I did was give him a choice.”

 


End file.
